Nice one, but it will go straight over the heads of the Green Believers, for whom 'climate change' is not really a scientific issue but a religious one. Like all Western religions Greenism is based on sin and guilt -- the sin in this case being that of making and retaining wealth -- and like all Western religions it requires a satisfying Apocalypse in which the wicked will repent as they burn for their misdeeds. And like all Western religions, it allows pardons for imaginary guilt to be bought via the transfer of large sums of money.

Suggesting that capitalism might be good for plants and animals as well as humans -- no, sorry, it's not going to run. It just doesn't have that winning tone of self-righteous denunciation.

Posted by Jon J, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 6:17:50 AM

That's right Jon J - if you can't be bothered to actually argue your point just label the opposing view a 'religion'. Lazy.

There has been some research showing that under increased atmospheric carbon grain crop yields increase but the protein level in the grain decreases, also that 'Koala' eucalypts change under increased carbon dioxide and become unpalatable to koalas. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens on a global scale, but I think the problem will be the destruction of crops due to more extreme weather rather than whether or not they grow well under increased carbon. Is there evidence that the increased production will keep up with demand caused by increased population? Or that we will actually bother to grow more food at all? The land deal with China in the Ord suggests not - they are going to grow sugar cane.

Posted by Candide, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 7:01:23 AM

The real question is, why is on-line opinion running a campaign to support climate change skeptics? And it is certainly running a campaign. Not a week goes by without at least one article (and sometimes more) supporting the skeptics. Balance is not expected. But proportion might be.

Posted by CatMack, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 7:36:02 AM

Hi Don,

Well all things considered the AWG alarm is going to plan. Polar bears have reached record numbers, the “researcher” who wrote the dying polar bears report has been stood down. Himalayan glacial volumes are back to normal this season so the taxi driver who did the report for the IPCC has moved to a city job, global temperatures have flattened for the past sixteen years in spite of growth in CO2 emissions, Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are doing what they have always done and sea levels are steady. How terrifying.

The warmertariat is in the process of killing off Japanese and German nuclear energy which is great, that way we get to sell more gas and coal. USA gas trading prices dropped this week by 30%. Japan, Russia, Canada and the USA have given strong endorsement to Kyoto by walking away from it. The CO2 trading markets have collapsed, NZ $2.60, UN E 5.20, EU E 7.55 (after a new cheap rights issue). The USA has a 600 year domestic supply of oil/gas and will overtake Saudi Arabia in supply by 2017.

I’d say we are on a roll but don’t tell the progressive commentariat, the poor little petals are fragile enough

Posted by spindoc, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 7:43:49 AM

Meanwhile this reference describes the various key outfits that comprise the professional lying machine behind the deniers and "skeptics".

Such is the company (of professional liars) that the erstwhile retired professor who wrote this article keeps.

Meanwhile these words were sponataneously spoken in 1995 by a Spiritual Philosopher who was acutely aware of the world situation, and where it was heading.

There have always been insane human beings, but, in earlier times, they were not as powerful as they have become in this dark-time. It is only in this time that human beings have become capable of producing effects that can change even global weather patterns, and global ecological patterns of all kinds. But human beings have always been insane in the domain of politics. But now, in its motion into the 21st century, the insanity of mankind is influencing even the larger picture of the human natural circumstance. And THIS MUST BE CHANGED - or there is going to be a terrible, horrific calamity on Earth! Such a calamity is not yet inevitable, but it WILL occur if there is not a fundamental transformation of mankind - in its heart and mind, and in its endeavors. A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTENING of the world-process must occur, because mankind is now having a PROFOUNDLY NEGATIVE effect on the human world-process, and even on the larger natural domain of the world.

All the emphasis words are from the authors talk/essay.

A more pithy direct assessment of humankind from the above author.

The world is mad. Humankind is in a state of extreme psychosis - dont you know!

Posted by Daffy Duck, Wednesday, 12 December 2012 7:51:23 AM

CatMac,

You said: "The real question is, why is on-line opinion running a campaign to support climate change skeptics?"

That could not be further from the truth, either on Online Opinion or on the rest of the Left wing web sites. Many of them go to the length of deleting comments that do not support the Orthodoxy. 'The Conversation', a site that is supposedly for academics, is one of the worst at selectively deleting comments that do not support their Left ideological beliefs. Attempting to shut down alternative views is rampant amongst the Left.